While supervising the disbursement of bailout funds for local
government workers at the ICT Center of the Bureau for Local Government
and Chieftaincy Affairs last Sunday evening, Mr. Titus Zam, Special
Adviser, Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs gladly
obliged to an interview by the Spean Adviser on Media and ICT, Mr Tahav
Agerzua.
Read excerpts below:
Where are we on the disbursement of bailout funds as at 5pm on Sunday, November 8th 2015?
We are disbursing the N15.5 billion bailout funds given to us by his
Excellency, the Governor of Benue State, to take care of the backlog of
salary arrears left behind by the past administration which he
inherited. So far we have disbursed for April and March for primary
school teachers and as I speak to you we are disbursing January and
February arrears for them. When we complete disbursement for primary
school teachers hopefully by tomorrow, (yesterday) we will now come back
and disburse to local government staff the remaining two months plus, I
say two months plus because their arrears cover a period of four
months, January, February, March and April; besides, there are pockets
of arrears for 2011, 2012, and 2013 which we are going to clear with the
amount from the monies approved to us by the Governor of Benue State.
At the moment we are focused on the ones for the months I mentioned in
respect of 2015 and so after that we will still look back and capture
the arrears.
Why has it taken so long to finish the disbursement?
The procedure for the disbursement is a bit scientific, it’s not a
matter of picking money from a particular point and throwing it into
individual workers’ accounts. You will recall that there were two
schools of thoughts as to how the funds will be disbursed, some people
were of the opinion that these funds should be given to the local
government arrears for onward disbursement to Local Government Staff
while others suggested that money should be given directly to the
individual local government accounts and we have chosen the second
option which is electronically paying money into the individual local
government staff accounts, reason being that local government areas have
all manner of indebtedness and challenges that require financial
attention. Possibility exists that if you pass these monies wholesome,
some local government workers may not get their due. Some local
governments may have no problems but many will have problems that may
lead to touching the bailout funds. But you and I are aware that this
money is meant for a special purpose which is payment of salary arrears,
so it makes better sense to adopt the e-payment procedure which we are
going through now. The little delay we are experiencing is as a result
of two major reasons. First, the volume of money, N15.5 billion to be
disbursed to up to 40,000 workers, representing primary school teachers
and local government staff is not a small task. The system is working in
such a way that we at the Bureau headquarters are disbursing to the
direct salary accounts of local government workers and primary school
teachers through the electronic payment system. There is a system called
the Interswitch, the central medium through which this money is
disbursed and then they now share it amongst individual workers through
their bank accounts in various banks in the Federation. Take for example
you, Tahav, you are a staff of a local government area and you bank
with Union Bank, the next person banks with First Bank, and all of that.
We disburse these funds into your own account through the Interswitch
process. It is their duty to now distribute these monies according to
the individual workers’ accounts. We at the Bureau here at the ICT
Center are to identify your bank, identify how much you are supposed to
collect and then send the money to the central control system known as
Interswitch who are now going to distribute this money to the individual
worker. And so picking the account of individual workers here from
40,000 requires time. You have to be careful so that you will pick the
correct sum of money, correct bank account and you also pick the correct
bank so that monies will not miss their way as to where they are
supposed to go. Secondly, the most critical challenge we are facing here
is that since this is an electronic process that has to do with network
(the air waves) sometimes for five to six hours the system is shut
down, and we have no control over this system. So we have to sit down
here for those number of hours waiting for the system to be cleared.
This is a hitech technology that is beyond the immediate control of the
Bureau of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, so that period that
is taking us to wait sometimes gives the impression to those outside
that we are not serious, but I tell you today being Sunday I have not
gone out to worship my God. Yesterday, I did not go anywhere myself, the
President of NULGE, Benue State Chapter, NUT Chairman Benue State
Chapter, and the management staff of this office. We are all here and as
you can see today, I am still here to ensure that the right thing is
done. Let me use this medium to appeal to our workers to be patient, the
Governor means very well for the workers that is why in the first
place, he sourced for these monies to pay their arrears. The process may
be cumbersome but the objective is for the benefit of Local Government
workers and primary school teachers. We are mindful of the fact that
this money needs to go to them and we have to protect it. So we demand
of them patience and understanding.
Why did you not do table payment?
The table payment is not going to benefit the individual workers and
so our major objective is to ensure the security of this money and to
ensure that the individual worker gets his or her arrears. If you do
table payment it will require carrying physical money from one place to
another, there may be a security challenge. If you do table payment,
there may also be a possibility of diversion from different layers
through which the monies will be passing. It is better, safer and neater
to direct this money straight to the account of the individual worker
who has served the state and was owed this money. It is neater and I
think it is in their interest to support the e-payment system.
What have you done about complaints of people who died, were not captured, retired but have worked for this money?
We have taken steps to ensure that everybody who is supposed to
benefit from this bailout benefits. For the category of people you have
mentioned, those that worked for this money and died, those retired,
those that were not captured but are genuine workers, already a
committee was put in place after the first verification exercise to look
into those people who fall into this categories. Since money for
specific salary arrears is not our problem now, we are sure the money
that was made available to us will take care of every Benue worker who
deserves to be paid. When we take care of the first set of people that
were captured and pay them their money, those that were not captured for
one reason or the other but we’re captured during the complaint
verification we will pay them afterwards. Those that died but are
supposed to benefit from the bailout will also be given their money
through their next of kin. We will compile the list, already, we have
asked for the list from the individual local government areas and the
list will be taken care of. The reason why we are not doing all of this
simultaneously with the payment of salary is that in the process their
might be confusion, so we have set aside the monies for these category
of people and we’re going to give them their money after we are done
with the people who are alive, working and were capture in the field. I
want to use this medium to also explain this point. Most of hose that
are crying wolf are the ones that were disqualified in the field because
of the nature of their employment. We earlier said those that were
illegally employed will not benefit from this bailout funds because they
are not genuine workers of Benue State and we cannot patronize them.
So if you hear complaints, try to separate those that are genuine
complaints from those that are not genuine. The ones making the loudest
noise are those that know themselves that they don’t stand to benefit
from the bailout funds. There is also a political angle to this matter.
The opposition will always make issues out of nothing. The very same
people that refused to pay Benue State workers that made us to now go
and borrow to pay workers are the ones inciting the people to complain.
If for four months he did not pay Benue workers and you are out of
office and the next government that comes into power has borrowed money I
see no reason why such a genuine worker will be complaining. I think
the voices your hearing from the field are not the voices of genuine
workers of Benue State because they know Governor Samuel Ortom loves
them and has taken this step to ensure that they get what was denied
them under the past administration.
People complain that you made a submission for which funds were released, why do you insist on a verification exercise?
At any point you are using public money your first objective is to
ensure prudence, accountability and honesty. Yes, we were guided by the
facts; we were given this information by the previous administrationa,
that is the number of workers in the local government system. From that
figure we requested the Federal Government to intervene. But it was not
proper for us to begin to verify at that early stage because we hadn’t
the information of who is supposed to benefit and who was is not. Our
major objective was to look for money and come and give the people who
deserve the money. Now the money has come. It is immoral, it is
carelessness and is wrong for us to throw these monies into the gutter
just because some figures were given to us. It is a loan that must be
repaid and so if you take a loan and don’t utilize it judiciously the
burden of repaying the loan still rests on your shoulders, and so the
Benue people must know that not every Tom, Dick and Harry that claims to
be a Benue worker will be given this money. The money will go to those
that genuinely deserve to be given, not the people that were smuggled
into the state payroll system, it doesn’t make any meaning collecting
this loan that we are going to pay back within 20 years, then we allow
it to go the way the local government funds were going in the previous
dispensation. I think we owe it a duty to sanitize the Benue society
especially the local governments where most of our people reside.
What about pensions and gratuities?
His Excellency the Governor of Benue State has said it time and time
again that when he met the Presidency to intervene in these liabilities,
the President only approved funds for the payment of salary arrears and
the instruction to him was specific: clear salary arrears. The other
liabilities he inherited including contractual commitments will be taken
care of afterwards and so monies available to us from the Central Bank
as approved by the President of this country are for salary arrears. But
efforts are being made to approach the Presidency again to be given
support so as to take care of the pension arrears that we inherited. So
for now we still plead for time, we still plead for patience. Many
people have come here suggesting that the money be shared between
pensioners and workers, but If we do that the workers who are currently
serving will have issues with us because the directive to us is to pay
them their money and not to direct any kobo to any government programme
or project. If we do that we will be violating the President’s directive
and our own commitment to the Benue worker. That those not mean
pensioners will not be considered, but for now first things first.
There is this allegation that you diverted N3 billion into your
private account once this bailout came to the Bureau, what’s your
reaction?
Those allegations have already been taken care of by the Governor of
Benue State who publicly said that allegation is political, it’s not
true and should be discarded. There is no way I could have diverted N3
billion from the bailout funds. At as the time the allegation was first
made, the money was still at the Ministry of Finance and as at the time
this allegation was thrown up into the air, the money hadn’t reached the
account of the Bureau which the Governor had put me to preside over. I
had not even taken delivery of the money, so how could I have accessed
N3 billion? I think that was in the imagination perpetrators of fraud
from the previous system that we inherited when it was not news for such
monies to be diverted. During the Ortom administration it is not not
even possible, the control mechanism put in place and such that you
don’t even have such access. Those peddling this rumour are the ones who
are guilty of those practices when they were here. The mistake they are
making is that they are telling us that if they were the ones sitting
where I’m sitting this is what they would have done. But I thank God, it
is not possible for me to have done that. It even conflicts with my
principles as an individual and my oath to the government and people of
Benue State where I promised to be transparent and accountable. Like I
earlier said the Governor of Benue State has responded to that, I did
not touch a dime, I will not touch a dime and I shall not touch a dime
of any public funds that are brought before me.
From your projection when are you going to complete the first phase of this exercise?
The next three days at most, today is Sunday, am here, by Monday,
9th, Tuesday is 10th, Wednesday, 11th, we should have completed the
first phase of those who are going to get. But I want to be very careful
in giving these dates because as I earlier said the process of
disbursement is electronically determined. It is not something that I
can pick manually from this point to the other, it depends largely on
the workings of the electronic process but the way we are going, having
taken care of primary school teachers, by tomorrow, (Monday) we will
finish that of local government staff. I think in the next three days
we should be able to take care of everybody inspite of the systemic
challenges we are going through. Three days we should be able to do
that.
How are you able to get feedback, how are you able to know that these monies have hit the accounts of individual workers?
There are two ways of generating the feedback. The first is from the
individual workers, when you disburse, let’s say to Makurdi local
government for instance, and the workers there get the alert through
their phones they call you and tell you that “oh thanks, we have gotten
our money”. That is the first way of getting the feedback. The
second one is, it’s the electronic system, once the money is delivered
there is a feedback on the system. If there is a failed transaction the
system still indicates. You see on the computers that a failed
transaction has occurred and then you know that this money didn’t get to
the required destination, and then you continue to press the bottom for
the money to go. If that fails as a result of the network or the
account is dormant or maybe because the individual did not put the
correct number of his or her account, you will now allow the individual
worker to forward the correct information or you find a way of
reaching them through their heads, either the Education Secretary, in
case of teachers, and Treasurer in case of local government workers to
note that such a transaction has failed, and then the individual worker
needs to come forward and supply the needed information. So these are
the two medium for which we are assessing the situation and getting
feedback.
Let’s be specific, I’m from Ushongo, what’s the situation of the workers there with regards to this payment?
In Ushongo Local Government, I know of fact that primary school
teachers have been paid April and March 2014 salary arrears. Local
Government staff too have been paid for the same period. As I speak to
you we are going back to pay the remaining two months being January and
February. Those months are to be paid before we go to bed this night.
When we are done with those four months for the primary school teachers,
we will go back and pay the remaining two months for the local
government category. After which as I earlier said we will look further
beyond 2014 and see those months that for one reason or the other they
were not paid by the previous administration. Time was here In Benue
State when people were paid quarter salary, half salary depending on the
thinking of the godfather of those days. The situation is not too
clear, that is why we are having some of these challenges, and so the
figures keep changing you know. Some local and departments were paid
and others not paid. The same local government, some will be paid half
salary, others will be paid quarter salary. It’s difficult for you to
get the exact picture but we are on top of the situation. We have
continued to request for the relevant Information from the relevant
quarters and they are being given to us. That’s the reason why you have
been hearing of people not been paid the correct amount of money. Some
people because they were given quarter salary they expect to be given
the other 1/3rd or 1/4th, some were given half and they expect to get
the other half. We are computing all of these, and we will take care of
them as a group. if you take individual cases as they appear there will
be confusion. So we are compiling complains, genuine ones will be
attended to. Let me use the language of general Gowon “money is not
our problem now”. We have N15.5 billion in our kitty and Governor
Ortom says he is not going to touch a kobo out of it as the money is for
local government areas of Benue State. Every kobo will be given out to
the individual worker. It’s a matter of patience.
What have you done about the health departments that were behind?
They have been paid. They have been given their July salary alongside August.
As things are now, where do you stand on local government salary?
Local Government salaries were paid for the month of August. When we
collect the October allocation we will take care of September. There
is a small history about this. I earlier said something somewhere, that
when the new Government came on board, His Excellency, out of kindness
decided to pay local government salary one month behind. He came in
June. Remember he was sworn-in on the 29th of May, and he assumed duty
on the 1st of June or thereabout. He didn’t start paying salaries from
June, he started in May. The allocation for June was used in paying May
salary, he got July, he paid June, he got September he paid August, now
when we get October we will pay September. That is where we stand. So
when people give this impression that local governments are owned two
months, it’s very misleading information. Now that we have gotten
October allocation, we are going to use it to pay September. It is
because of the lack of funds. We met with the NUT and NULGE leadership
that from August when we noticed a sharp drop in the allocation to local
governments and indeed Benue State as a whole, we met with the union
leaders and resolved to be taking care of each of these categories
installmentally. How do I mean? For this current month of October for
example, we are going to pay only primary school teachers. For the
September allocation that we got we only paid local government
workers. So by November when we take we will now pay local government
staff. So we will be alternating between these two sectors. If
resources permit we will take care of all of them at the same time, but
as resources did not permit for this month, we will only take care of
only the primary school teachers. Local Government last month, primary
school this month we will go that way until God brings succour.
When there are insufficient funds, why don’t you combine two months and pay one month completely for everybody?
No, one sector will wait for too long. Remember that the economic
situation in the country is generally harsh. So if one sector is to wait
for two months, majority of these people will not be there for you.
Some for health reasons, some their children will miss school. So it’s
better to alternate than to compact. If they had to wait, then those
that will wait will have to wait for 60 days. In the face of the harsh
Economic weather we are facing, that will be too punitive. It’s better
to wait for thirty days.
Do you have any other comments or advice?
Yes I do. My first comment will be that these arrears were inherited.
Yes, government is a continuous process no doubt, but somebody was in
the saddle and he didn’t pay your salary. Somebody else has taken over
government of the state and has gone out of his way to source for money,
to go and borrow and pay you. Good conscience demands that you
appreciate such a person. Good conscience demands that you should be
patient.